Leadership and Exhaustion | Battles Total War: Warhammer II Guide

Last update: 12 October 2017

There are two factors that have an important effect on your army, i.e. their morale and exhaustion. Therefore, you have to control the level of these two.

• Leadership
• Exhaustion

Leadership

In the game, morale of a unit is described by their leadership level. The base value is different for each unit - the higher the value, the better they are at handling stress. The current level of leadership is represented by the white bar under the HP bar on the unit's banner. When it drops to zero, the unit will start to flee from the battlefield. If it is not chased by the enemy, you can still recover control of them, but do not send them into battle straight away and wait for the leadership level to stabilize.

Additionally, units that have lost their leadership several times already, they can be disbanded, at which point it is impossible for them to return into battle.

Factors having positive effect on leadership are:

1. Nearby position of the commanding Lord - the army commander exudes an aura that raises leadership in the units within range. The range of this effect can be increased by buying appropriate abilities on the Lord's tree. Additionally, the Lord may have an ability that temporarily raises leadership in units.
2. Proximity of allied units - if the unit's flanks are protected by other units, it is much more difficult to crush them.

Factors having adverse effect on leadership are:

1. Losses in the unit.
2. The losing curve of the battle.
3. Enemy fire.
4. Proximity of enemy units causing terror.
5. Being surrounded by enemy.
6. Retreat of allied units.
7. Death or wounding of the Lord commanding the army.

Current effect of individual factors can be looked up in the unit statistics window (you can access it during the battle by pressing "I", or by pressing the button in the bottom-left corner of the screen) and by rolling your mouse over leadership bar.

Exhaustion

During the battle, combat value of your units depends on how well-rested they are. Usually, there will be entering battle well-rested, which means that they will be fully effective.

However, both your and the enemy's units will give in to exhaustion. At first, this will not have any great effect on actions of a given unit. However, after it reaches the level of very exhausted, your unit's effectiveness and speed will start to decline.

To regenerate its strength, you simply have to leave such a unit aside for some time, to have it stand in one spot and not fight. After some time, the unit will start to regenerate. However, during battle, you will rarely have time for that.

What affects exhaustion is the unit's speed of movement, among others. Running speeds this process up. This is why, before you approach the enemy, try to have your units march.